Topic: Europe

President Obama was in Estonia today uttering brave words. He said that “the defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London” and vowed that the U.S. would never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea anymore than it recognized the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic Republics. “Borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun,” he said.

President Obama was in Estonia today uttering brave words. He said that “the defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London” and vowed that the U.S. would never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea anymore than it recognized the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic Republics. “Borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun,” he said.

Is Vladimir Putin impressed? Hardly. The smirking, swaggering aggressor just bragged that he could “take Kiev in two weeks” if he felt like it. Certainly Putin has little cause to think that even a Russian military march to Kiev would meet with serious Western opposition given the lack of response so far to the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine.

In an article on the European response, the New York Times had a telling line: “Despite anger at Russian actions, there are few signs that Europe has the stomach for a more confrontational policy if the White House does not. In the end, European leaders whose economies are dependent on Russian energy are reluctant to widen the conflict beyond additional sanctions. Instead, they may seek an outcome that makes some concessions to the Kremlin.”

Thus, for all the rhetorical furor over Russian actions, the Europeans resist imposing serious sanctions or sending arms to Kiev. France is actually providing Russia with two state-of-the-art warships while leaving Ukraine high and dry.

It is hardly surprising that the Europeans would want to appease Russia no matter what. It is their way with aggressors whether named Mussolini, Hitler, or Putin. Only the U.S. can rally lethargic Europeans to do more to stop Russian aggression which, if left unchecked, will erode the entire basis of the post-1945 world order which created peace in Europe in the first place.

But for all of Obama’s tough-sounding words, he is not willing to back them up with tough actions such as sending arms to the Ukrainians to allow them to defend themselves, positioning substantial U.S. army units in the frontline NATO states, or imposing truly severe sanctions that would cut off the entire Russian economy from access to the U.S. financial markets and dollar-denominated transactions. And if the U.S., which is far away and much less economically connected with Russia than are the Europeans, won’t act, what chance is there that the Europeans–who will face real economic consequences for standing up to Russia–will do anything?

Amid all the metrics commentators propose to determine “who won” Operation Protective Edge, one is staring everyone in the face: the international community’s attitude toward a postwar (if and when the war is over) Gaza. And on that score, Israel seems to have won a convincing victory. The Gaza war has changed the way the world is talking about Hamas and the Gaza Strip–and, despite all their tut-tutting at Jerusalem, they sound quite a bit like Benjamin Netanyahu.

Amid all the metrics commentators propose to determine “who won” Operation Protective Edge, one is staring everyone in the face: the international community’s attitude toward a postwar (if and when the war is over) Gaza. And on that score, Israel seems to have won a convincing victory. The Gaza war has changed the way the world is talking about Hamas and the Gaza Strip–and, despite all their tut-tutting at Jerusalem, they sound quite a bit like Benjamin Netanyahu.

I wrote last week of the Netanyahu government’s informal proposal for a sort of “economic peace” for Gaza in return for its demilitarization. Despite its record of success, economic peace has never really been embraced by the international community–and when Netanyahu proposes it, it’s usually met with anger and derision. But not this time. This time Hamas seems to have overplayed its hand.

It’s possible that this is Hamas being a victim of its own morbid “success” with regard to the propaganda war. That is, maybe the international community is so torn up by the violence in Gaza that they want more than ever to prevent its recurrence. And no matter how often they try to blame Israel, they seem to understand that there’s only one way to prevent future bloodshed: demilitarize, at least to a significant degree, the Gaza Strip.

Take, for example, the Obama administration. While President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and their staffers and advisors have been intent on criticizing Israel in public and in harsh terms, the president’s loyal defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, reportedly spoke as though he took the need to disarm Hamas for granted last week. And it’s even more significant to hear of European leaders joining that bandwagon. As Foreign Policyreported last night:

Major European powers have outlined a detailed plan for a European-backed U.N. mission to monitor the lifting of an Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of Hamas’s military tunnel network and rocket arsenals, according to a copy of the plan obtained by Foreign Policy.

The European initiative aims to reinforce wide-ranging cease-fire talks underway in Cairo. The Europeans are hoping to take advantage of this week’s 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire to cobble a more durable plan addressing underlying issues that could reignite violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

It remains unclear whether the European plan has the support of Hamas, Israel, or the United States. It does, however, include several elements the Obama administration believes are essential, including the need to ease Gazans’ plight, strengthen the role of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and ensure the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

The plan — described in a so-called non-paper titled “Gaza: Supporting a Sustainable Ceasefire” — envisions the creation of a U.N.-mandated “monitoring and verification” mission, possibly drawing peacekeepers from the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which has monitored a series of Israeli-Arab truces in the region since the late 1940s. The mission “should cover military and security aspects, such as the dismantling of tunnels between Gaza and Israel, and the lifting of restrictions on movement and access,” according to the document. “It could have a role in monitoring imports of construction and dual use materials allowed in the Gaza Strip, and the re-introduction of the Palestinian Authority.”

The plan’s existence is in many ways more important than its details, for it shows Europe to be embracing Netanyahu’s idea for an economic peace for Gaza. Removing the import and export restrictions (or most of them) in return for real demilitarization would be an obvious win for everyone–except Hamas. In fact, it would give a major boost to the peace process overall, because it would discredit armed “resistance” as an effective method to win Palestinians their autonomy.

It would be quite a turnaround if Gaza somehow became the prime example of peaceful state building with the international community’s help. It’s also not an easy task, to say the least. But the fact that even Europe is on board, and expects to get the UN to agree to such a plan, shows that the principle of disarming Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip has gone mainstream.

Whether it happens is another question, of course, and no one should get their hopes up, especially while Hamas is breaking even temporary ceasefires. Additionally, the UN’s record in policing such zones of conflict, especially in the Middle East, is not cause for optimism. But talk of Hamas “winning” this war is made all the more ridiculous when the topic of conversation in the capitals of the Middle East and throughout the West is how to permanently disarm Hamas and dismantle any infrastructure they can use against Israel.

If you’re afraid of raising your blood pressure, you probably shouldn’t read two articles out today, in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, about how Europeans are subsidizing al-Qaeda with millions of dollars in ransom paid for the release of their hostages.

If you’re afraid of raising your blood pressure, you probably shouldn’t read two articles out today, in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, about how Europeans are subsidizing al-Qaeda with millions of dollars in ransom paid for the release of their hostages.

The Times account by reporter Rukmini Callimachi is particularly detailed and especially enraging. It reports that al-Qaeda and its affiliates have earned $125 million to $165 million since 2008 in kidnapping ransoms. “These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, who funneled the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid.”

This has now become the major source of funding for three al-Qaeda affiliates in particular: al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa), al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen), and Shabab (Somalia). “Put more bluntly,” Callimachi writes, “Europe has become an inadvertent underwriter of Al Qaeda.”

These al-Qaeda affiliates have stopped routinely killing Western hostages as al-Qaeda in Iraq used to do, because it is so much more lucrative to keep them alive. In fact these al-Qaeda groups coordinate their hostage-taking procedures, often helped by al-Qaeda central in Pakistan, with the actual pick-up of hostages contracted out to criminal gangs and with everyone along the way (including hostage negotiators) receiving a cut of the profits. This is big business, “and business is booming: While in 2003 the kidnappers received around $200,000 per hostage, now they are netting up to $10 million, money that the second in command of Al Qaeda’s central leadership recently described as accounting for as much as half of his operating revenue.”

Only the U.S. and Britain, it seems, are refusing to play along. While President Obama released Taliban prisoners in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. is not willing to pay money for hostages. Thus U.S. and British captives can expect to be killed or held indefinitely. But their principled stance has no impact in discouraging hostage-taking because the kidnappers know that the European states are such easy marks.

It’s hard to better the summary provided by a former U.S. ambassador to Mali, Vicki Huddleston. “The Europeans have a lot to answer for,” she told the Times. “It’s a completely two-faced policy. They pay ransoms and then deny any was paid.” She added, “The danger of this is not just that it grows the terrorist movement, but it makes all of our citizens vulnerable.”

And just when I thought I could not get any more disgusted with European policy–it’s bad enough that they subsidize Vladimir Putin, subsidizing al-Qaeda is even worse.

Last week, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Italy released an unusual joint statement. They banded together, they explained, to denounce their own countries. Specifically, they wanted to denounce the rank anti-Semitism that has exploded throughout Europe, where the public used the Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza as a pretext to rally in support of the destruction of the Jewish state and in some cases the extermination of the Jewish people on the whole. The main source of disagreement among Europe’s pro-Hamas demonstrators is the desirable extent of the anti-Jewish genocide.

Last week, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Italy released an unusual joint statement. They banded together, they explained, to denounce their own countries. Specifically, they wanted to denounce the rank anti-Semitism that has exploded throughout Europe, where the public used the Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza as a pretext to rally in support of the destruction of the Jewish state and in some cases the extermination of the Jewish people on the whole. The main source of disagreement among Europe’s pro-Hamas demonstrators is the desirable extent of the anti-Jewish genocide.

It’s a difference in degree, not in kind. And while at first glance the foreign ministers’ joint statement might appear to be laudable, such goodwill evaporates when you realize that they are talking instead of doing. Anti-Semitism is often a lagging indicator of state rot, and it is no different here. The foreign ministers are essentially pleading with the world to withhold judgment for their states’ respective failures. In France, the state has given up on protecting its Jews; “France’s Jews are staying indoors for fear of their lives,” a resident of Paris told the Algemeiner recently. In Germany–in Germany–protesters called for the Jews to be gassed. And the best the German state can come up with is to sign a joint letter denouncing such hateful barbarism.

The joint statement is a white flag. European governments have no idea what to do. France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, took to the pages of the New York Times on July 10 to declare: “France Is Not an Anti-Semitic Nation.” Three days later, an attempted pogrom broke out in Paris. The France of Laurent Fabius’s imagination is clearly a wonderful place. The one that actually exists is descending into madness.

All this is drawing attention to another aspect of the world’s discomfort with Jewish self-defense. We are constantly told that you can criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic; this is undoubtedly true. Israeli officials are criticized in Israel as much as anywhere else. But the demonstrations claim to be in protest of Israeli policy or in the name of peace. That sounds awfully nice in theory. In practice, the demonstrators aren’t keen on making such distinctions.

It’s not just in France, Germany, and Italy, of course. A pro-Gaza protest in London called for the elimination of Israel. Here’s the Daily Beast on how protests in the Netherlands have become outright rallies in support of ISIS, the too-violent-for-al-Qaeda terrorist offshoot carving up Iraq:

Many of the demonstrators covered their faces with Palestinian scarves or balaclavas. “Anyone who doesn’t jump is a Jew,” someone shouted as the whole group started jumping in a scene that might have been ludicrous if it weren’t for the hateful message. “Death to the Jews!” the crowd shouted in Arabic.

This scene last Thursday came in the wake of an earlier demonstration supposed to defend the Palestinians suffering in Gaza, which turned quickly into a hatefest targeting Israel, with people carrying placards that screamed “Zionism is Nazism.” But while the comingling of pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment has become all too common in European protests in recent weeks, that the battle flag of the Islamic State waved in the streets of The Netherlands on July 24 is something new and particularly dangerous.

Read that last sentence again: “the battle flag of the Islamic State waved in the streets of The Netherlands.” I’m sure behind that black flag is just genuine concern for the humanitarian needs of Gaza City. America has not been immune to this phenomenon, in which protesters insist they care about Palestinian statelessness so they can push thoroughly disgusting anti-Jewish blood libels. Here is a picture our own Abe Greenwald took at a rally in Manhattan. Above scenes of blood-soaked children are the words “This is Bloody Israel! These are Bloody Jews!” And then, if you still didn’t get the point, in parentheses: “Blood Suckers.”

It’s not subtle, and it’s not about humanitarianism. The anti-Israel rallies around the world have been marked by consistency. We are told of the existence, or of the possibility at least, of pro-Palestinian rallies or protests against Israeli policy that are not about pushing a medieval hatred of Jews. We should not have to take it on faith, or make do with Laurent Fabius’s deepest apologies.

For the second weekend running European cities witnessed a surge of hateful, and in places violent, anti-Israel protests. With the temper of these gatherings becoming so alarmingly extreme, European governments may now be waking up to a problem that has been festering in parts of their societies for quite some time. Yet as they attempt to make sense of this growing source of public disorder, one wonders whether Europe’s political elites will reflect upon their own role in manufacturing this fiercely anti-Israel atmosphere.

For the second weekend running European cities witnessed a surge of hateful, and in places violent, anti-Israel protests. With the temper of these gatherings becoming so alarmingly extreme, European governments may now be waking up to a problem that has been festering in parts of their societies for quite some time. Yet as they attempt to make sense of this growing source of public disorder, one wonders whether Europe’s political elites will reflect upon their own role in manufacturing this fiercely anti-Israel atmosphere.

Some of the most shocking scenes happened in Paris, where two synagogues came under attack, resulting in street fighting between anti-Israel activists and Jewish youths. In an effort to prevent a repeat of this mayhem the authorities took the unprecedented decision of prohibiting any pro-Palestinian demonstrations planned for the following weekend. While such a move is certainly a measure of just how serious the French government is about combating this malady, it is equally a sign of how insurmountable a problem has become when a government is reduced to simply reaching for the “outlaw” option. It is indeed a concerning state of affairs for any democracy to be forced into taking such drastic action as the last resort for ensuring public safety.

Of course, in reality such moves are by their nature bound to backfire. They inevitably add to the existing sense of outrage and convince others that there is a conspiracy seeking to silence dissenters. As a result the events in Paris this weekend were still more violent than those seen the week before. Rioters set fire to cars, looted Jewish-owned stores, and hurled a Molotov cocktail at another synagogue, while violent clashes left a dozen police injured. Many of those involved in these disturbances came from France’s sizable Muslim minority, and so some might consider it understandable that these demonstrators should feel a deep sense of solidarity with Muslims suffering in Gaza. Yet their fellow Sunni Muslim brothers have been cut down in vastly greater numbers, and in far more brutal ways, by Assad’s Alawite regime in Syria and by rival Shia insurgents in Iraq, both of course backed by Iran. It simply cannot be ignored that these events did not draw anything like the same reaction.

That observation holds true for those marching the streets of London. On Sunday, during a rally held in support of Israel, it was reported that a man had to receive treatment from paramedics after being assaulted by pro-Palestinian activists. Indeed, in recent weeks anti-Semitic incidents in Britain are said to have doubled. This is the inevitable fallout from the kind of incitement prevalent at the rallies being held for Gaza. At Saturday’s the crowed was thick with placards that bore the Star of David alongside the swastika, that referred to the “Holocaust” in Gaza, and that carried such messages as: “well done Israel, Hitler would be proud.” The crowd enthusiastically chanted what has now become the movement’s favorite rallying cry: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call for the total extinction of the State of Israel between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.

With an estimated 15,000 attendees, the numbers were significantly reduced from the turnouts seen in London during Israel’s 2009 Operation Cast Lead. As several commentators have now observed, the demographic at these marches has shifted to being predominantly Muslim, many conservatively dressed, with a sprinkling of the far-left and the high minded thrown in. And the atmosphere seemed uglier than ever before. There were scuffles with the police, the Israeli embassy had to be barricaded, and organizers and guest speakers whipped the crowed into a frenzy by bellowing down the microphone about Israel being an illegal/racist/apartheid/terror state. Still, none of this was quite as distasteful as the stunt pulled at another rally held in London earlier in the week, when protesters brought along children smeared with red paint–a modern-day blood libel if ever there was one.

All of this was just a few notches down from events in Paris and could quickly escalate to comparable levels of anarchy. But the truth is that both the British and French governments have fostered the attitudes that breed such extreme outbursts. The French government has been at the forefront of European efforts to single out Israel’s settlement policy as a uniquely unspeakable crime, and likewise the British government has upheld the narrative that it is Israel’s settlement policy that has sabotaged peace efforts. And when the Commons came to debate the situation in Gaza earlier this week, most parliamentarians began by condemning Hamas rockets before swiftly justifying them as a kind of forgivable response to wicked Israel’s settlement building, a curious position given that the rockets are coming out of Gaza, from which all of Israel’s settlements were removed in 2005. But then this is the prevailing wisdom and indeed the line pushed by the BBC and Agence France-Presse, both state owned, of course.

European governments rightly pour scorn on the rising flames of anti-Semitism that are erupting out of the continent’s anti-Israel fringe, but at what point do these same politicians face up to their own role in fanning these flames and legitimizing the extreme views that give rise to them?

When the historian and founding president of Brandeis Abram Sachar wrote a history of the Jewish journey from the death camps to the establishment of the State of Israel, he called it The Redemption of the Unwanted. I’ve always found the term to be depressingly appropriate, both as a profound statement on the flipside of the Jews being the “chosen people” and as an insight into postwar Jewry.

When the historian and founding president of Brandeis Abram Sachar wrote a history of the Jewish journey from the death camps to the establishment of the State of Israel, he called it The Redemption of the Unwanted. I’ve always found the term to be depressingly appropriate, both as a profound statement on the flipside of the Jews being the “chosen people” and as an insight into postwar Jewry.

Though the Holocaust was over, anti-Semitism was not. And while some Jews bravely chose to rebuild from the rubble–they were rebuilding not just European Jewry but Europe itself, though their European brethren would never concede as much–the Jewish people had understood their status. They were not fleeting victims or convenient scapegoats (or at least not only those things); they were unwanted, dead or alive.

That’s how it must have felt in the days, months, and years after the war. But now that decades have come and gone, should they still feel that way? Europe’s answer, repeated over the weekend, seems to be a clear yes. The main story of Sunday’s bubbling over of European anti-Semitism was the anti-Jewish rioting–perhaps attempted pogrom is a better term–at a Paris synagogue, in which Jews were trapped until evening by anti-Semitic protesters who “tried to force their way into a Paris synagogue Sunday with bats and chairs, then fought with security officers who blocked their way, according to police and a witness.”

The worst part is the sense of inevitability of the violence. Business Insider’s report on the incident has to include one of the most absurd qualifiers you’ll ever read in such a case. Here’s their opening sentence: “French interior minister Manuel Valls condemned ‘with the greatest force’ attacks on two Paris synagogues Sunday by pro-Palestinian protesters who broke away from an otherwise peaceful demonstration.”

It was an “otherwise peaceful demonstration”–you know, besides the attempted pogrom. (Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln….) And surely it is to be appreciated that the French government condemns pogroms. But is it ungrateful to point out that condemning the regular violence against Jews in France is just maybe not enough–not nearly? French Jews are voting with their feet because they feel unwanted, and they feel unwanted because the French state either can’t do anything about France’s horrendous anti-Semitism–a second synagogue was firebombed in Paris yesterday–or it won’t. Either way, the message is clear.

France was not the only location of European anti-Semitism yesterday. And though it may have been minor in comparison–and though there were anti-Semitic outbursts outside Europe too–the symbolism of one of the other incidents must have been truly terrifying. It was in Germany, and here is what happened, according to the AP:

German police allowed an anti-Israel protester to climb inside a police car and shout slogans including “child murderer Israel” and “Allahu akbar!” — Arabic for “God is Great!” — through a police megaphone, a spokeswoman for Frankfurt’s police said Sunday.

Police let the protester use the megaphone during a Free Gaza demonstration Saturday because he had offered to calm down a protest that had turned violent, spokeswoman Virginie Wegner told The Associated Press.

“We as police had come up spontaneously with this unusual method and he abused it — we didn’t expect that,” Wegner said, adding that police were investigating the incident. “Police are neutral during protests.”

Instead of calming things down, the protester — whose identity was not revealed — shouted anti-Israel slogans in German and Arabic in downtown Frankfurt. A video that went viral shows a crowd following the police car, cheering and repeating the chants.

I doubt the Jews of Germany will soon forget hearing anti-Jewish slogans shouted from a police megaphone–in 2014. There are a couple of things wrong with the Frankfurt police’s response. Obviously, letting a protester into the police car to access the megaphone was a boneheaded mistake. But then Wegner defends the police by saying, first, “we didn’t expect that,” and then saying “Police are neutral during protests.”

Well, maybe they should have expected it, and hopefully will from now on. As for their neutrality, it is clearly neutrality in theory not in practice, and it is not doing law and order any favors.

Pogroms in Paris, thuggish intimidation in Germany: does European Jewry have a future? It’s a question we keep asking, though I suspect we keep asking it because we don’t like the apparent answer–like the kid who keeps shaking and re-shaking the magic eight ball until the right prediction comes up. Clarity might be more helpful, which the anti-Semitic incidents do provide. Europe’s anti-Semites could not be clearer: their hatred of Jews has nothing to do with Israeli self-defense. It’s just a convenient excuse to target the unwanted.

Last week, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve made a very smart observation about terrorism in France that other Western officials would do well to consider. On May 24, a man, believed to be 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche, shot and killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. After Nemmouche’s arrest about a week after the crime, authorities began using the term “lone wolf” to describe him–including Cazeneuve. But Cazeneuve now thinks that was a mistake and, as JTA reported, had this to say on the term:

The term suggests an assassin or terrorist who is working independently of partners or any larger framework.

But actions such as Nemmouche “begin a long way back,” he said. The processes of radicalization, Cazeneuve added, “have to transcend many stages,” including procuring weapons” and “arriving in conflict zones or terrorism.” He concluded by saying: “What I want to say is that accomplices are important here not only in the procurement of arms that terrorists use. This leads me to think, without any reservation, that the ‘lone wolf’ is anything but.”

Western officials like to use the term “lone wolf” both for self-serving reasons (to avoid blame) and to try to calm the public (there’s no conspiracy afoot, no persistent danger, etc.). But not having an immediate and knowing accomplice is not the same as acting completely alone, and Cazeneuve seems to realize this. In Western Europe, it is especially important to understand how and why crimes like this happen because European Jewry is under attack more consistently and brazenly than has been the case in decades. As the largest European Jewish community, France is something of a test as to whether European Jewry has a future. And right now it’s failing that test.

Last week, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve made a very smart observation about terrorism in France that other Western officials would do well to consider. On May 24, a man, believed to be 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche, shot and killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. After Nemmouche’s arrest about a week after the crime, authorities began using the term “lone wolf” to describe him–including Cazeneuve. But Cazeneuve now thinks that was a mistake and, as JTA reported, had this to say on the term:

The term suggests an assassin or terrorist who is working independently of partners or any larger framework.

But actions such as Nemmouche “begin a long way back,” he said. The processes of radicalization, Cazeneuve added, “have to transcend many stages,” including procuring weapons” and “arriving in conflict zones or terrorism.” He concluded by saying: “What I want to say is that accomplices are important here not only in the procurement of arms that terrorists use. This leads me to think, without any reservation, that the ‘lone wolf’ is anything but.”

Western officials like to use the term “lone wolf” both for self-serving reasons (to avoid blame) and to try to calm the public (there’s no conspiracy afoot, no persistent danger, etc.). But not having an immediate and knowing accomplice is not the same as acting completely alone, and Cazeneuve seems to realize this. In Western Europe, it is especially important to understand how and why crimes like this happen because European Jewry is under attack more consistently and brazenly than has been the case in decades. As the largest European Jewish community, France is something of a test as to whether European Jewry has a future. And right now it’s failing that test.

Cazeneuve was also speaking about a man named Mohammed Merah, the gunman involved in a brief crime spree in Toulouse that included murdering Jews. This week in France, Merah’s name was reportedly found spray-painted in a message praising him. In fact, the phrase “this week in France” is rarely followed by good news, and for Jews the phrase has taken on an even more ominous tone.

On June 11, Tablet reported on “the third disturbing incident from [the] French capital” so far that week, and then listed all the anti-Semitic incidents in Paris in 2014 for good measure. Each such story tends to bring a round of recollections on social media sites of readers’ latest stories of French anti-Semitism.

It’s easy to see how such incidents proliferate when each is treated as a “lone wolf” attack. The willful blindness practically ensures it will continue. It’s possible that a shift in attitude such as Cazeneuve’s will make a difference, though it would take a cultural shift for the correct approach to be prevalent enough to turn the tide. It’s easier to pretend the tide isn’t there.

What does that mean for French Jewry, and for European Jewry? As to the former, JTA also noted last month a survey showing that three-quarters of French Jews are considering leaving the country. More than half the respondents said “Jews have no future in France,” and nearly all (more than 95 percent) said anti-Semitism there is “worrisome” or “very worrisome.” As for what it means for European Jewry, this part of the story is pertinent:

Ninety-three percent said the French state had no efficient means for countering “Islamic exclusionist and pro-Palestinian propaganda,” whereas 93.4 percent said French mass media are partially responsible for France’s anti-Semitism problem. Roughly three-quarters said French Jewish institutions were helpless to stop anti-Semitism.

To take those three points in order: According to Brown University’s Maud Mandel (no relation–that I know of, anyway) “France houses the largest Jewish and Muslim populations living side by side outside of Israel.” That bodes ill, obviously, for Muslim-Jewish relations in Europe in the future (though there are certainly aspects of this that are specific to France). On the second point, European mass media is broadly hostile to the Jewish state, so it’s unlikely any strife caused by the press would be limited to France. (Ahem, BBC.) On the third, I’m not sure what the Jews of France expect, outside of their own private army. Jewish institutions in many cases could do much better than they are, but it’s doubtful they can singlehandedly change the hearts and minds of Europe’s Mehdi Nemmouches and Mohammed Merahs.

If there is any strength to be had in numbers, then France’s treatment of its Jews shows how easily that strength can be negated. The packed aliyah fairs in Paris and the rate of French aliyah itself raise the specter of what Jabotinsky once called “humanitarian Zionism.” If such a Zionism is necessary in 2014, Europe has failed its Jews once again.

Though comparisons between Russian leaders today and 20th century monsters like Hitler and Stalin are generally–and rightfully–resisted or corrected when used in the U.S., it’s impossible to understand the conflict in Ukraine without making room for the sense of history that hangs over Europe. Der Spiegelreports on German veterans who recognize too much of the scenes in Ukraine from their own time serving there seventy years ago (though the Germans were the invaders that time). And the New York Timesnotices a once-forgotten Moscow Cold War museum now swamped by visitors “drawn as much by history as by the sense that the combustible, post-World War II conflict between East and West has come roaring back to life.”

This also makes it easier to understand European nerves over American inaction. If they see the possibility of a massive war engulfing Europe’s major powers, they must also see American war-weariness and retrenchment chic as distinct but not tangibly different, for their own purposes, from the American isolationism they remember as well. So in one sense, they could be heartened by the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll which, as Max notes, shows an American public confused and hesitant about America’s role in the world but not isolationist. But that optimism is based on the sense that Americans are open to persuasion on foreign involvement, which leads to the crucial question: who is doing the persuading?

Though comparisons between Russian leaders today and 20th century monsters like Hitler and Stalin are generally–and rightfully–resisted or corrected when used in the U.S., it’s impossible to understand the conflict in Ukraine without making room for the sense of history that hangs over Europe. Der Spiegelreports on German veterans who recognize too much of the scenes in Ukraine from their own time serving there seventy years ago (though the Germans were the invaders that time). And the New York Timesnotices a once-forgotten Moscow Cold War museum now swamped by visitors “drawn as much by history as by the sense that the combustible, post-World War II conflict between East and West has come roaring back to life.”

This also makes it easier to understand European nerves over American inaction. If they see the possibility of a massive war engulfing Europe’s major powers, they must also see American war-weariness and retrenchment chic as distinct but not tangibly different, for their own purposes, from the American isolationism they remember as well. So in one sense, they could be heartened by the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll which, as Max notes, shows an American public confused and hesitant about America’s role in the world but not isolationist. But that optimism is based on the sense that Americans are open to persuasion on foreign involvement, which leads to the crucial question: who is doing the persuading?

Max notes the central contradiction in the results: the pollsters asked Americans what they thought (in addition to a bevy of other issues) about foreign policy, and Americans responded, essentially, that they have no idea. They succumbed to a kind of magical thinking on foreign policy in which they want the U.S. to pull back from the world without creating a vacuum–a logical impossibility. They appear frustrated that when America plays a reduced role in world affairs its influence is replaced by Vladimir Putin instead of unicorns and labradoodles (I’m paraphrasing slightly).

But on some level that confusion is understandable because the president of the United States is arguing out loud with the straw men in his head, claiming that the alternative to toothless sanctions is total world war. Americans at home may see this as the amusing inanity of an ideologue who is losing an argument, but it’s doubtful the Europeans are laughing. It turns out there is some middle ground between treating Putin like Gilly from Saturday Night Live and nuking Moscow, though you wouldn’t know it from the commander in chief.

The fact of the matter is, as I’ve noted from time to time, the president has a unique ability to shape public opinion on foreign policy, more so than on domestic policy. Americans have internalized the president as both the leader of the free world and the commander in chief of the armed forces of the planet’s only superpower. So the public is not going to be easily persuaded on the goodness of American power projection by this administration.

Looking forward, again, Europeans are probably not too encouraged. The Democrats are seeking to succeed Obama with Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state who presided over the failed Russian “reset,” chewed out allies like Israel, and expressed regret to Pakistan–which cooperates with anti-American terrorists and sheltered Osama bin Laden–for past American policy. On the right, the debate looks to be more interesting, not least because unlike the Democrats the Republicans do want to have an actual debate, not a coronation.

Sentiments like those expressed in the poll are reflected in the way the Republican race for the nomination has taken shape so far. The president’s abject failures have opened space for those who can present a serious alternative. That means that Republicans with the most success so far have been those like Scott Walker and Rand Paul, with the former proving conservative governance can fix even deep and costly liberal mismanagement and the latter making a thoughtful case for individual liberty in the face of liberal attacks on basic freedoms.

But the effect on the foreign-policy debate has been muted. Paul advocates retrenchment (though without the apology tour, one suspects) and has warned not to “tweak Russia.” Others like Walker seem to disagree with Paul on foreign policy but as the governor of a Midwestern state locked in a battle with government unions in the midst of the dismal Obama economy, the issue doesn’t exactly come up very often. Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who possesses one of the stronger resumes of the potential 2016 class, has started branching out a bit more into foreign affairs but remains mired in a debate over education policy back home. Others are facing similar circumstances, with the high-profile exception of Marco Rubio. The Florida senator has dropped a bit in the polls recently, but he has not shied away from displaying his fluency in foreign affairs or striking a contrast to Paul’s perspective.

So yes, Americans are inclined toward the maintenance of a peaceable world order, and they are persuadable on the need for America to protect that order with a robust presence on the world stage. But they’re not going to get there on their own.

What would it take for the Europeans to face up to the ever more belligerent degrees of anti-Semitism coming from parts of that continent’s Muslim population? Disturbing reports have emerged about certain anti-Jewish comments made by speakers at one of Europe’s most important Islamic conferences. Writing in Le Figaro Michele Tribalat recounted some of the statements made at the congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, which convened in Paris on Wednesday. The most disturbing statements came from “guest of honor” Hani Ramadan, a prominent Muslim leader in Geneva and the brother of Tariq Ramadan.

Before the delegates Ramadan insisted in his speech that, “All the evil in the world originates from the Jews and the Zionist barbarism.” In his speech Ramadan listed places of conflict across the world and claimed that these wars are being driven by the “hand” of Zionism. Similarly, the audience was informed that Jews control the media and that in America and France no one can be elected to the presidency without first pandering to Jewish organizations. Ramadan was good enough to concede, however, that Europe’s “financial lobbies that practice usury…no longer rely only on Jews.”

What would it take for the Europeans to face up to the ever more belligerent degrees of anti-Semitism coming from parts of that continent’s Muslim population? Disturbing reports have emerged about certain anti-Jewish comments made by speakers at one of Europe’s most important Islamic conferences. Writing in Le Figaro Michele Tribalat recounted some of the statements made at the congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, which convened in Paris on Wednesday. The most disturbing statements came from “guest of honor” Hani Ramadan, a prominent Muslim leader in Geneva and the brother of Tariq Ramadan.

Before the delegates Ramadan insisted in his speech that, “All the evil in the world originates from the Jews and the Zionist barbarism.” In his speech Ramadan listed places of conflict across the world and claimed that these wars are being driven by the “hand” of Zionism. Similarly, the audience was informed that Jews control the media and that in America and France no one can be elected to the presidency without first pandering to Jewish organizations. Ramadan was good enough to concede, however, that Europe’s “financial lobbies that practice usury…no longer rely only on Jews.”

The fact that these statements could come from such an apparently prominent speaker at such an important Islamic conference surely says something about currents in the wider Muslim community. With such sentiments being bandied around from the podiums of high-profile Islamic conferences, is it any wonder that across Europe there has been such a rise in Muslim hate crime against Jews? In America, liberal Jews have often refused to a hear a word of it. They look at you with wary suspicion if you dare to suggest that Muslims have played a significant part in the upward trend of European anti-Semitism. Even after the harrowing 2012 shootings at a Jewish school in Toulouse and the uncovering of a number of similar anti-Jewish terror plots, many liberals in America seemed to assume that there must be some anti-Muslim prejudice at work on the part of anyone who tried to highlight this phenomenon.

Then last fall the European Union released its own comprehensive survey of anti-Semitism and the figures spoke for themselves. In France, 73 percent of those who reported having experienced anti-Semitism said that it came from what the survey termed “someone with a Muslim extremist view.” Just 22 percent said they had witnessed anti-Semitism from a “Christian extremist” and 27 percent said they had seen it coming from someone with a “right-wing political view.” For what its worth, 67 percent of those surveyed in France said they had heard anti-Semitism coming from someone on the left.

Such trends should hardly be surprising. In recent years Britain has had to deal with the phenomenon of anti-Jewish and hardline Saudi textbooks being used in Muslim education programs for young children. This culture of anti-Jewish education then seems to continue all the way up to the universities, with Muslim student associations still hosting radical preachers who express views no different from those voiced by Ramadan at Wednesday’s conference. Is it any wonder, then, if some members of the Islamic community are ready to believe the most hallucinatory and outlandish conspiracy theories about Jews? And as Ramadan was sure to explain to his audience, “Against these international schemes of Zionist power, there is only one rampart: Islam.”

Given the scale of mass immigration into Europe, the process of acculturation was never going to be immediate or even entirely smooth. Yet, it often appears as if European governments have done less than nothing to westernize immigrant communities, in many instances having even encouraged a certain separateness, just as the doctrines of multiculturalism stipulate. After the horrors of World War Two Europe embraced a kind of post-national cosmopolitan tolerance that forbade calling out bigotry when it emanated from ethnic minorities. As Ed West has written, “the irony is that, out of collective guilt for what happened to Europe’s Jews, Europe imported millions of people from some of the world’s most anti-Semitic countries, [and] made no attempt to counter these prejudices.”

No doubt Ramadan’s comments will make some headlines and provoke some mutters of condemnation and concern, just as the European Union’s recent anti-Semitism survey did. But how many more Toulouse-style terror attacks will Europe go through before it is ready to contemplate getting serious? Perhaps it is incapable of ever doing so.

If diplomacy is war by other means, the Europeans have been taking to the diplomatic warpath amidst an increasingly strident attitude toward Israel and its policies on Jewish communities over the 1949 armistice lines. The European position on Israel’s settlements has often been tagged as hypocritical and replete with double standards, but in recent days the European reaction to announcements of new homes for Jews living over the green line, including in eastern parts of Jerusalem, has been so disproportionate as to appear almost unhinged.

On Thursday, Israeli diplomats in London, Paris, Rome, and Madrid were all hauled in by government officials to be subjected to protest and rebuke at the news that the Israeli government had issued housing permits for 600 new homes in Jerusalem and 800 in the settlement blocks, which under just about any conceivable re-drawing of the borders would remain part of Israel.

It is a rather strange turn of history to find that even in the 21st century European governments are still trying to tell Jews where they can and cannot live. Strange, that in a manner that almost smacks of old-style colonialism, Europeans are still trying to determine the borders of other peoples in other parts of the world.

If diplomacy is war by other means, the Europeans have been taking to the diplomatic warpath amidst an increasingly strident attitude toward Israel and its policies on Jewish communities over the 1949 armistice lines. The European position on Israel’s settlements has often been tagged as hypocritical and replete with double standards, but in recent days the European reaction to announcements of new homes for Jews living over the green line, including in eastern parts of Jerusalem, has been so disproportionate as to appear almost unhinged.

On Thursday, Israeli diplomats in London, Paris, Rome, and Madrid were all hauled in by government officials to be subjected to protest and rebuke at the news that the Israeli government had issued housing permits for 600 new homes in Jerusalem and 800 in the settlement blocks, which under just about any conceivable re-drawing of the borders would remain part of Israel.

It is a rather strange turn of history to find that even in the 21st century European governments are still trying to tell Jews where they can and cannot live. Strange, that in a manner that almost smacks of old-style colonialism, Europeans are still trying to determine the borders of other peoples in other parts of the world.

These moves by European diplomats sit alongside the European Union’s latest policy of issuing funding restrictions on Jewish businesses and organizations operating over the green line. So far this boycott policy is being held off while negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are underway. Yet, the message from Brussels has been clear, should talks fail, such policies will be brought to bear against Israel, signifying that even if the Palestinians walk away from a deal, Europeans will blame the Jewish state.

Indeed, the level of hypocrisy from European diplomats over the recent settlement announcement is breathtaking. For one thing, Israel is under no obligation to freeze building in the territories while negotiations take place. Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas demanded a series of concessions before deigning to join peace talks, but rather than put life on hold for Israelis living in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel instead opted to release a number of Palestinian terrorists. Now it seems the Europeans are demanding both the release of terrorists and a freeze on Jews living in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The real double standard, however, concerns European silence in the face of countless Palestinian breaches of the terms set down for the negotiation process. As I’ve written about here previously, the Palestinians have recently made moves to pursue membership in UN bodies, in direct contravention of their obligations under the negotiation framework. And as Jonathan Tobin has also noted in these pages, far from educating their population for peace as the Oslo agreements require them to, the Palestinian Authority continues mass incitement against Jews and Israel.

Nor should we forget, although it seems the Europeans already have, that in recent days a stream of rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israeli civilian areas. Yet, we can rest assured that if and when the Israeli military is forced to mount a ground incursion into Gaza, the streets of European capitals will fill with protesters, the airwaves will become deafening with furious condemnation of Israeli “aggression,” and European governments will call for Israel to show restraint.

To their credit, the Israelis have not taken this latest diplomatic assault lying down. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has responded boldly stating, “When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors to complain about the incitement that calls for Israel’s destruction? I think it is time to stop this hypocrisy. I think it is time to inject some balance and fairness to this discussion. Because I think this imbalance and this bias against Israel doesn’t advance peace.” And quite rightly the Israeli prime minister went on to say, “I think it pushed peace further away because it tells the Palestinians, ‘Basically you can do anything you want, say anything you want and you won’t be held accountable.’”

Israel’s foreign minister has gone further still and has requested meetings between Israeli officials and the ambassadors of the same European countries that summoned their Israeli ambassadors in for rebuke. No doubt the mood will be tense, the conversation somewhat uncomfortable, but something has to make the Europeans rethink their increasingly unhinged attitude toward Israel and those of its citizens who happen to live over the 1949 armistice lines.

The challenge France faces in stemming the tide of a resurgent anti-Semitism has been on full display during the controversy over its now-infamous anti-Semitic comic and the modified Nazi-like salute he has sadly popularized. Both the bigotry and the government’s discomfiting attempts to quash it were neatly summarized in these two sentences from the Associated Press report on Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala:

The 47-year-old Dieudonne (pronounced DYEU-dun-ay) denies his act — or the “quenelle” — is anti-Semitic. However, he has been convicted more than a half-dozen times for inciting racial hatred or anti-Semitism over the years.

To deny the quenelle is anti-Semitic is merely to insult the public’s intelligence. The modified Nazi salute is accompanied by Dieudonne’s “comedy” in which he laments the lack of gas chambers for French Jews. But that second sentence is problematic as well. He’s been “convicted” time and again for his racism and anti-Semitism. Dieudonne’s hateful act should be shunned, but not by punished by the government. Yet as Dieudonne’s popularity has increased, so has the French government’s authoritarian response–one that should be anathema to a free society:

Nantes and Tours have become the latest French cities to ban a show by controversial comic Dieudonne M’bala M’bala.

Dieudonne, who has six convictions for hate speech against Jews, had been due to open his tour in Nantes on Thursday.

Bordeaux and Marseille had already cancelled performances.

President Francois Hollande earlier urged French officials to enforce an order authorising the ban, but Dieudonne has vowed to appeal.

The challenge France faces in stemming the tide of a resurgent anti-Semitism has been on full display during the controversy over its now-infamous anti-Semitic comic and the modified Nazi-like salute he has sadly popularized. Both the bigotry and the government’s discomfiting attempts to quash it were neatly summarized in these two sentences from the Associated Press report on Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala:

The 47-year-old Dieudonne (pronounced DYEU-dun-ay) denies his act — or the “quenelle” — is anti-Semitic. However, he has been convicted more than a half-dozen times for inciting racial hatred or anti-Semitism over the years.

To deny the quenelle is anti-Semitic is merely to insult the public’s intelligence. The modified Nazi salute is accompanied by Dieudonne’s “comedy” in which he laments the lack of gas chambers for French Jews. But that second sentence is problematic as well. He’s been “convicted” time and again for his racism and anti-Semitism. Dieudonne’s hateful act should be shunned, but not by punished by the government. Yet as Dieudonne’s popularity has increased, so has the French government’s authoritarian response–one that should be anathema to a free society:

Nantes and Tours have become the latest French cities to ban a show by controversial comic Dieudonne M’bala M’bala.

Dieudonne, who has six convictions for hate speech against Jews, had been due to open his tour in Nantes on Thursday.

Bordeaux and Marseille had already cancelled performances.

President Francois Hollande earlier urged French officials to enforce an order authorising the ban, but Dieudonne has vowed to appeal.

The Jews of France should hope Dieudonne wins his appeal. As Jonathan noted last week, banning the gesture and Dieudonne’s “comedy” will only make both more popular.

Additionally, such actions will reinforce Dieudonne’s hateful speech. When anti-Semites anywhere propagandize about malign Jewish influence on their beloved countries, the last thing that would discredit them would be for the Jewish minority to appear to prevail on the government to outlaw anti-Jewish remarks and take away the livelihood of its proponents.

More specifically, the French actions risk retroactively buttressing Dieudonne’s protestation that the quenelle is an “anti-establishment” sign, not an anti-Jewish gesture. Once the government outlaws it and those who use it, the quenelle goes from being anti-Semitic to also being anti-establishment. (Is anything more anti-establishment than a government-banned hand gesture?)

The controversy over the quenelle takes place against the backdrop of Europe’s decades-long struggle to learn the right lessons from the Holocaust. One of those efforts–well-intentioned and an outgrowth of the earlier attempts to get the continent’s surviving Nazis assimilated back into society–was to criminalize Holocaust denial. Unfortunately, criminalizing speech is its own form of legitimization: only dangerous, seductive ideas must be forbidden to be defeated. The exception of course is speech that incites violence, and there is unfortunately a thin line, especially in Europe, between anti-Semitic speech and anti-Semitic violence.

Thus the laws against Holocaust denial and similar hateful speech are part of a genuine desire to grapple with balancing freedom and security. In its 2007 write-up of the Holocaust denial conviction of Ernst Zuendel, the New York Timesincluded this aside:

Interestingly, Mr. Zuendel had spent much of his adult life in Canada — having lived and worked there since 1958, and where he wrote a little book called “The Hitler We Loved and Why.” But the Canadians decided he was a security threat in 2005 and sent him back to Germany.

It can be tempting to consider hate speech a security threat. The two can work in tandem without being equated, but it’s always a struggle for countries–especially those that don’t have a First Amendment–to decide where to draw the line. And European countries dealing with the terrible combination of past genocide and present anti-Semitism should be commended for their desire make pariahs of those who pine for the days of state-sponsored extermination.

But those ideas–when they remain ideas, and not battlefield cries–should be defeated by a society, not outlawed by the government. Jailing anti-Semites for their opinions won’t reduce anti-Semitism. Incarceration can deter action, but it’s unlikely to alleviate grievance, and anyway it is an unjust method of changing minds. The same goes for the government banning “comedians” whose act offends basic notions of decency.

It’s also worth reminding the Jews of Europe that their religious beliefs contain ideas that the modern secular left consider offensive as well. They may find that a heavyhanded government enforcing a standard of righteous thought is on their side this time. If they think it will stay that way, then they, too, have unlearned the lessons of the past.

Most of us may not have heard of it until recently, but the quenelle, the name given to a hand gesture that is a downward facing Nazi salute, has become an important symbol of the shift in European culture in recent years. Created by Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, an anti-Semitic French comedian, the quenelle is now all the rage in France. Soccer players do it after scoring goals and the comic’s fans, including soldiers, send him pictures in which it is performed in every conceivable manner, especially at sites like Holocaust memorials, synagogues, and schools. Even Tony Parker, a French citizen and an American basketball star of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, has had his picture taken performing it with Dieudonné, as he is known on stage, though Parker has since apologized. As such it is an all-too-pertinent example of how Jew hatred has moved from the margins of European society to the mainstream as a result of what the U.S. State Department has termed a “rising tide” of anti-Semitism.

Though M’Bala M’Bala claims the gesture is nothing more than an “anti-system” inside joke, his attempts at humor tend to revolve around resentment against Jews. That allows the jest to be the not-so-secret handshake that brings disaffected Muslim immigrants together with the denizens of the far right in a shared community of hate in which Jewish targets are the punch lines. But while French authorities, including sports league officials, are seeking to discourage its use, the problem here is a lot bigger than one foul-mouthed show-business personality and his followers.

Most of us may not have heard of it until recently, but the quenelle, the name given to a hand gesture that is a downward facing Nazi salute, has become an important symbol of the shift in European culture in recent years. Created by Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, an anti-Semitic French comedian, the quenelle is now all the rage in France. Soccer players do it after scoring goals and the comic’s fans, including soldiers, send him pictures in which it is performed in every conceivable manner, especially at sites like Holocaust memorials, synagogues, and schools. Even Tony Parker, a French citizen and an American basketball star of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, has had his picture taken performing it with Dieudonné, as he is known on stage, though Parker has since apologized. As such it is an all-too-pertinent example of how Jew hatred has moved from the margins of European society to the mainstream as a result of what the U.S. State Department has termed a “rising tide” of anti-Semitism.

Though M’Bala M’Bala claims the gesture is nothing more than an “anti-system” inside joke, his attempts at humor tend to revolve around resentment against Jews. That allows the jest to be the not-so-secret handshake that brings disaffected Muslim immigrants together with the denizens of the far right in a shared community of hate in which Jewish targets are the punch lines. But while French authorities, including sports league officials, are seeking to discourage its use, the problem here is a lot bigger than one foul-mouthed show-business personality and his followers.

At a time when the efforts of European intellectual elites to delegitimize Israel has frequently crossed the line into anti-Semitism, and the growing population of North Africans and Africans have brought their own brand of traditional animus toward Jews onto the continent, the quenelle is the perfect example of the changed atmosphere in Europe and the way practitioners of Jew hatred have managed to portray themselves as trendy rather than throwbacks to the Holocaust.

The conceit of the quenelle is that it can claim to be a counter-cultural symbol, as distinct from those directly associated with traditional anti-Semitism or Nazism. Since in many European countries, and France in particular, hate speech is banned, the furor over the quenelle’s breakout into mainstream culture has led to a discussion about whether the gesture should become illegal as well as if Dieudonné’s shows, which feature soi-disant humorous rants about Jewish “slave drivers” manipulating ordinary people and complaints about claims of Jewish victimhood, should also be prohibited.

This is a mistake, since although France has a strong tradition of government intervention in affairs in which authorities should stay out of, banning either the gesture or the performer will raise justified complaints about rights of free speech as well as making Dieudonné into a victim rather than a perpetrator. More to the point, the exclusive focus on the comedian, which has brought him international notoriety and exposure that he could never have hoped to achieve with his limited artistic appeal, misses the point about the popularity of the gesture and the simmering hate that it exposes.

The quenelle fad, which Dieudonné not unreasonably terms a success, is merely a symptom, not the disease. This outbreak is inconceivable outside the context of the non-stop incitement against Jews that masquerades as criticism of Israel or Zionism that has become a mainstream element of both elite as well as popular European culture. In the decades following the Holocaust this would have been confined to the fever swamps of the far right or far left, but the old constraints against Jew-hatred have slipped away in recent years. At a time when Jewish religious practices such as circumcision and kosher slaughter are under legal attack in many European countries and Israel has become the whipping boy of the international community, traditional hate has become acceptable so long as it operates under the cloak of anti-Zionism.

What is needed in France is not a ban on the quenelle but a determination by politicians, opinion leaders, and cultural figures to fight back against this new variant strain of anti-Semitism. But with so many of the cultural elites there–as well as in other Western European nations–so closely associated with the demonization of Israel, such a campaign may not be possible.

When people are having their pictures taken performing the quenelle in front of a Jewish school in Toulouse where Jews were massacred by a Muslim shooter, as has reportedly happened, France may have reached the tipping point where it is no longer safe for Jews. If Europe truly wishes to avoid the flight of the remnants of Jewry that has put down new roots there since 1945, it must recognize that its problem is mainstream Jew hatred, not a rogue comedian.

Millions of Turks have migrated to Europe; Turks comprise the largest minority in Germany. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that: Many of the Turks living in Germany work hard and seek to integrate into German society. In the most recent German elections, Cemile Giousouf, a 35-year old daughter of a Turkish immigrant, was elected to the Bundestag as a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. That is good news. For too long, Europe has been a pot in which little has melted.

Alas, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now seeks to keep it that way. He has now demanded that European countries teach the children of the Turkish Diaspora in Turkish, rather than the language of the land:

Millions of Turks have migrated to Europe; Turks comprise the largest minority in Germany. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that: Many of the Turks living in Germany work hard and seek to integrate into German society. In the most recent German elections, Cemile Giousouf, a 35-year old daughter of a Turkish immigrant, was elected to the Bundestag as a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. That is good news. For too long, Europe has been a pot in which little has melted.

Alas, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now seeks to keep it that way. He has now demanded that European countries teach the children of the Turkish Diaspora in Turkish, rather than the language of the land:

“Those people who contribute to the economy of the country they reside in by working and [turn an honest penny] for more than half of a century have become, to a great extent, permanently settled. However, a large part of those [Turkish] citizens have not been granted education in their mother tongue despite their great efforts and demands,” Erdoğan told European education ministers.

Erdoğan would essentially promote a system of separate but equal in which Turkish emigrants would attend Turkish schools while other German, Danish, Dutch, and Swedish students attended their own separate schools in the language of the land. In effect, the man caricatured as a would-be sultan back home now seeks to impose a modified version of the Ottoman millet system. His demands also reflect the bigotry at the heart of the Turkish leader, who categorizes citizens on the basis of religion and ethnicity rather than in terms of national citizenship. Erdoğan’s demands follow revelations that the Turkish government has maintained secret race codes for use by its own education ministry.

Immigration can enrich societies, but not at the expense of the embrace of common values which underlays citizenship. How sad it is that the religious and ethnic lens trumps all else in 21st century Turkey, as Turkish liberalism and secularism continues to slide backward. Let us hope that European leaders will be confident enough in their own societies to ignore Erdoğan and his backward demands.

Earlier this week, Jonathan Tobin thoughtfully weighed in on Michel Gurfinkiel’s brilliant article at Mosaic Magazine on the paradox of Jewish life in Europe. Having written in the past on similar themes and in a similar vein here at COMMENTARY, I wish to add another dimension to the debate over the future of European Jewry that, in the understandable concern over rising anti-Semitism, sometimes gets lost.

Despite the disheartening vilification of Israel, the biggest threat to long-term European Jewish survival is assimilation, not persecution or even prejudice.

Earlier this week, Jonathan Tobin thoughtfully weighed in on Michel Gurfinkiel’s brilliant article at Mosaic Magazine on the paradox of Jewish life in Europe. Having written in the past on similar themes and in a similar vein here at COMMENTARY, I wish to add another dimension to the debate over the future of European Jewry that, in the understandable concern over rising anti-Semitism, sometimes gets lost.

Despite the disheartening vilification of Israel, the biggest threat to long-term European Jewish survival is assimilation, not persecution or even prejudice.

European Jewish demographics since World War II ended show a pattern of decline that can be correlated to the degree of Jewish assimilation into the broader European society. The more secular Jews are, the less children they tend to have.

As Daniel Johnson points out in a rejoinder to Gurfinkiel’s essay, Jewish demographic decline in Britain has now been reversed–mostly because of the Haredi community’s high birthrates, as a reader shrewdly remarks. One should add the Modern Orthodox into that caveat–for they are, as always, the best hope for the long-term survival of any Jewish community.

The fact is, European Jews are very much like their non-Jewish counterparts. They are assimilating into something–and their full embrace of the surrounding culture leads to dwindling numbers of Jews for the next generation as a result of lower birth rates, intermarriage, lack of participation in communal life, lack of Jewish literacy, and the like. Their loss to the community means that communities become smaller over time–and larger religious families are not large enough to make up for those lost numbers.

Is there prejudice in Europe? Plenty. Some of it is a byproduct of European hostility to Israel, which in some ways is a sublimation of no-longer acceptable classic anti-Semitism, and in some ways it is its new incarnation. Some of it is resurfacing from the right, some of it in the East, and some of it will become worse if the economic crisis does not recede. But nobody serious is talking of discriminating against Jews and nobody who is talking about it is being taken seriously.

The worst cases of discrimination against Jews have occurred in the intellectual world–evidence of the illiberal streak still present among self-defined liberal intellectuals and academics. But no one has been denied equal rights, job opportunities or access to welfare on the basis of being Jewish. That would be and will remain unthinkable.

More importantly, the level of security in place among Jewish communities across Europe would be impossible, especially in smaller communities, were it not for the state authorities’ constant commitment to provide or complement security measures. The need for such exceptional security measures reveals a deteriorating environment–but the ongoing public allocation of resources for the protection of Jewish institutions reflects a commitment to pluralism and Jewish existence.

State largesse for Jewish institutions goes well beyond security–it has rescued Jewish heritage sites from decay; supported countless cultural events such as the European day of Jewish Culture; and financed Jewish education; overall benefiting living communities as well as the memory of lost ones.

Being Jewish is a complex business for those who take their identity seriously, and in today’s Europe some of those aspects are more pleasant than others. It is a balance, and both those who leave and those who stay articulate compelling arguments justifying their choice. There has not been a mass Jewish flight from any European country–strong evidence that the picture is not that bleak. But many Jews seriously contemplate moving, or at least take steps to enable their children to move (educating them abroad for example)–a reminder that the picture is not cheerful either.

There are also some unexpected side-effects to this predicament that are strengthening, rather than weakening, Jewish identity in Europe, thus improving chances for Jewish continuity.

More Jewish children attend Jewish day schools than ever before–even if it is just to avoid the chance encounter with prejudice, now far more likely than in the past. And because faith schools are subsidized in many European countries, Jewish education is, unlike in the U.S., very affordable. Tuition is within reach of middle-class incomes and, thanks to financial aid, no Jewish kid whose parents wish in Jewish education is left out.

A separate but correlated development is the mass participation by young Jews in March of the Living/Birthright type programs to Auschwitz and Israel–something sure to strengthen their identity.

The result? Young Jews are more literate than their parents and grandparents ever were in Jewish heritage–and these are secular Jews. The Orthodox were, are and will always remain, well-versed in Jewish tradition. But their secular counterparts were falling by the way sides. Where Jewish day schools exist, that trend has been reversed–because they offer a safe environment, a high-quality education, a sense of belonging, and a way to make friends that provides more chances to find a Jewish partner and less chances to have friends who turn out to be anti-Semites.

Jewish demographers have conclusively documented positive correlations between day school attendance and group programs strengthening collective identity on one hand, and the tendency not to marry out on the other, as they have correlated higher religious observance to lower intermarriage rates. So, children going to Jewish day schools in greater numbers, and then going onto trips to Israel and/or Poland at a critical stage of their formative years, have stronger Jewish identities and a stronger commitment to working for the community, being a part of it and remaining a member into adulthood.

None of this diminishes the validity of Gurfinkiel’s analysis.

The picture is verily confusing–today, it is both harder and easier than in the past to be a European Jew. There are good reasons why many Jews feel that Israel or, to a lesser extent, the U.S., Canada or Australia offer a better chance for a Jewish future. But the numbers of those voting with their feet are still much smaller than those opting to stay. The dwindling numbers, then, are primarily a function of Jews who cease identifying as Jews, less a function of Jews fleeing anti-Semitism.

Just as often, those who are leaving are the least affluent or the most ideologically fervent–their motives have to do less with fleeing anti-Semitism (though hostility plays a role) and more with tackling a combination of material hardship and disaffection with the predominant social values.

I share Gurfinkiel’s alarm at the pathetic, instinctive “Third-Worldist” dislike for Israel that European elites obsessively entertain, but do not see it as an existential threat for Jewish communities as such. The threat comes from a confluence of factors, of which antipathy for Israel is one.

Muslim anti-Semitism is also a growing threat–and it is not enough to live in leafy middle-class suburbs to avoid it. Ultimately, Jews still think that working with local institutions, pursuing interfaith dialogue, promoting civic education, and perpetuating memory are strong antidotes for European society at large.

They have not been entirely wrong so far.

Things might change if homegrown Islamic radicalism grows. Even so, it will not be the Jews’ problem alone. Whether Europeans get medieval against their Muslim minorities at some point remains to be seen–and Jews would not want to be standing in the way (or on the side) of that mob when it happens–but I suspect Jews will be spared by and large.

To the average Western European, Jews are still welcome while on good behavior and mostly left to themselves and able to worship freely and thrive culturally while being equal citizens before the law. Israel is a different story–and for those whose attachment to Israel remains a central feature of their identity, the European intellectual landscape and public discourse will never stop offering solid reasons to leave.

In what is becoming a standard trope for Israeli leftists, Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit today decries the “savagery” of Israel’s “rising political forces,” who are “alien to the new West’s values.” To which my response is, “thank God”–because the “new West’s values” are antithetical to the very existence of a Jewish state. And if that sounds far-fetched, just consider European Commission President Manuel Barroso’s speech last week when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on the European Union’s behalf.

Quoting the commission’s first president, Walter Hallstein, Barroso declared that 20th-century history showed “The system of sovereign nation-states has failed,” because “through two world wars it has proved itself unable to preserve peace.” Therefore, Barroso said, “nations needed to think beyond the nation-state” and create “supranational institutions.” Later, he reiterated this point by quoting one of the EU’s founding fathers, Jean Monnet: “The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present,” Monnet said, and even the EU itself “is only a stage on the way to the organized world of the future.”

In what is becoming a standard trope for Israeli leftists, Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit today decries the “savagery” of Israel’s “rising political forces,” who are “alien to the new West’s values.” To which my response is, “thank God”–because the “new West’s values” are antithetical to the very existence of a Jewish state. And if that sounds far-fetched, just consider European Commission President Manuel Barroso’s speech last week when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on the European Union’s behalf.

Quoting the commission’s first president, Walter Hallstein, Barroso declared that 20th-century history showed “The system of sovereign nation-states has failed,” because “through two world wars it has proved itself unable to preserve peace.” Therefore, Barroso said, “nations needed to think beyond the nation-state” and create “supranational institutions.” Later, he reiterated this point by quoting one of the EU’s founding fathers, Jean Monnet: “The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present,” Monnet said, and even the EU itself “is only a stage on the way to the organized world of the future.”

Nor is Barroso alone. Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland echoed this idea in his presentation speech. “After the two world wars in the last century, the world had to turn away from nationalism,” he declared. And though Europe is currently experiencing a crisis, “the solution now as then is not for the countries to act on their own at the expense of others.”

Barroso and Jagland obviously don’t speak for every European, but they do represent the dominant worldview of the European elite. And a worldview that believes “The system of sovereign nation-states has failed” clearly has no use for a country that defiantly proclaims itself a Jewish nation-state and insists on pursuing vital interests–like protecting its citizens from rocket fire–even “at the expense of” the Palestinians who are launching the rockets. Nor, incidentally, does this worldview have much use for an America that similarly insists on preserving its sovereignty and refuses to sacrifices its interests to the global collective’s whims. The Barroso-Jagland worldview thus goes a long way toward explaining European hostility to both Israel and America.

Nor does the growing popularity of European separatist movements contradict this worldview. Even in Scotland and Catalonia, where pro-independence parties recently won clear majorities, most voters’ support for “independence” is conditional on their new country receiving automatic EU membership. In other words, they want “independence” only on condition that they not actually have to exist for even a day as a fully independent country. The unavoidable conclusion is that even among ordinary Europeans, this worldview remains alive and well.

Hence for the foreseeable future, understanding it will remain vital for understanding Europe. To that end, I recommend two important essays published by Yoram Hazony in 2010. The first, drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, explains the paradigm shift that created this worldview and its implications for Israel. The second uses Immanuel Kant’s philosophy to explain why this view doesn’t contradict Europe’s ardent support for, say, a Palestinian nation-state (here’s the two-sentence, vastly dumbed-down version: European post-nationalists view the nation-state as a stage primitive peoples must go through en route to enlightened supra-nationalism, so for tribal Arab societies, becoming nation-states would be a step forward. But it’s unconscionable for Israel, having achieved this stage, to want to stay there instead of moving on to the next).

The bottom line, however, is clear: Israel’s survival as a Jewish state depends on its very willingness to reject “the new West’s values.” And European antipathy is the unavoidable price it will have to pay for that choice.

Much has been discussed throughout the election season about the two presidential candidates’ European preferences: Barack Obama has always been more comfortable with Western Europe, while Mitt Romney made it a priority to emphasize the oft-forgotten NATO allies to the east. But perhaps no one underscores the wisdom of Romney’s approach better than A.A. Gill–though unintentionally.

Gill, writing from London, takes to the pages of the New York Times to lecture America on Europe’s lost love for Obama. They had such high hopes for the worldly leftist. But Gill unwittingly demonstrates why Obama was leading much of the pre-election polling, despite presiding over an unpopular first term and sluggish economy: Obama was smart enough not to do what Western Europeans wanted him to do. It’s not a bad road map, ironically, for how to win a U.S. presidential election. Here’s Gill on the breaking of European hearts:

Much has been discussed throughout the election season about the two presidential candidates’ European preferences: Barack Obama has always been more comfortable with Western Europe, while Mitt Romney made it a priority to emphasize the oft-forgotten NATO allies to the east. But perhaps no one underscores the wisdom of Romney’s approach better than A.A. Gill–though unintentionally.

Gill, writing from London, takes to the pages of the New York Times to lecture America on Europe’s lost love for Obama. They had such high hopes for the worldly leftist. But Gill unwittingly demonstrates why Obama was leading much of the pre-election polling, despite presiding over an unpopular first term and sluggish economy: Obama was smart enough not to do what Western Europeans wanted him to do. It’s not a bad road map, ironically, for how to win a U.S. presidential election. Here’s Gill on the breaking of European hearts:

Then it happened. It, meaning nothing. The first thing that didn’t happen was the closing of the prison at Guantánamo Bay. Then, the cessation of drone strikes didn’t happen. Then, any serious movement on the Palestinian question or the attempt to curb the bellicosely right-wing Israeli government didn’t happen.

I think Gill is being unfair to Obama. Let’s give the president due credit: he tried to make some of the mistakes and blunders Gill was hoping for. But you can imagine how difficult it would be for the president to run for reelection if he were fighting hard for Gill’s support. Obama has had enough trouble already because of his inexperienced bungling in the Middle East and his bizarrely belligerent treatment of Benjamin Netanyahu. But Gill wanted more, somehow. Gill–speaking for Western Europe, apparently–wanted public humiliation and suffering from the Israeli prime minister.

Obama also wanted to close Guantanamo Bay, before he learned a bit about the facility and its inmates. And the drones? They’ve been effective, and hey–Obama wants a second term.

Gill despairs at how conservative and right-wing the American Democrats are, comparable to Europe’s conservatives and Christian Democrats, he says. Where is the real left wing, he asks? He explains that “the absence of any sort of electable socialist movement in America is a constant subject of incomprehension.”

Then, he really lays on the guilt trip:

But the idea that a democratic president could want to disengage with the rest of the world and to retreat to fortress America, to pull up the drawbridge on a messy world, is the most inexplicably wounding thing of all. Meanwhile, the Republicans would want to get involved with the rest of us only to lay down the law and protect American interests and biblical Israel.

Imagine that. The American right only wants to keep some semblance of law and order, defend our allies, and–most unforgivably–protect our interests. It’s almost as if American politicians practice statecraft and behave as if they’ve been entrusted by their population with the protection and service of this great nation.

Who can Europeans trust, Gill pleads, to keep capitalism at bay and outsource American decision making to the pseudointellectuals of another country? No matter the outcome, Election Day in America must be difficult for someone like Gill, absorbing the quadrennial disappointment that, despite his great hope, the American electorate proves never to be quite foolish enough for him.

The central pillar of the rebuttal to complaints about American defense spending compared to that of the rest of the world is the fact that other countries–or continents, in Europe’s case–can only afford to skimp on defense spending because the U.S. will pick up the slack. American defense cuts, if not done carefully and responsibly, risk leaving a vacuum in areas where the U.S. military has carried the burden of influence.

So it’s not surprising that the prospect of American defense cuts, together with the “pivot” of resources to the Asia-Pacific region, are making some European allies nervous. Britain’s new defense minister, however, has some advice for his European counterparts: stop whining and pitch in:

Instead of worrying about the cutbacks to U.S. military power in the region, which many NATO countries apparently had been counting on to offset their own deep defense reductions, [Phillip] Hammond said the allies must recognize that “as a result, European nations, including the UK, will need to do much more of the heavy lifting in the security of their own region,” including both Europe itself and the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Horn of Africa, which he called “the near abroad.”

“This is not the end of Atlanticism, but the beginning of a new, more balanced relationship in the alliance,” Hammond said.

While the U.S.-UK ties will always be Britain’s priority, Hammond said, “to support your rebalancing [to Asia], we will seek to work more closely with our neighbors in Europe, particularly France and Germany, to enhance capabilities in our own region.”

The central pillar of the rebuttal to complaints about American defense spending compared to that of the rest of the world is the fact that other countries–or continents, in Europe’s case–can only afford to skimp on defense spending because the U.S. will pick up the slack. American defense cuts, if not done carefully and responsibly, risk leaving a vacuum in areas where the U.S. military has carried the burden of influence.

So it’s not surprising that the prospect of American defense cuts, together with the “pivot” of resources to the Asia-Pacific region, are making some European allies nervous. Britain’s new defense minister, however, has some advice for his European counterparts: stop whining and pitch in:

Instead of worrying about the cutbacks to U.S. military power in the region, which many NATO countries apparently had been counting on to offset their own deep defense reductions, [Phillip] Hammond said the allies must recognize that “as a result, European nations, including the UK, will need to do much more of the heavy lifting in the security of their own region,” including both Europe itself and the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Horn of Africa, which he called “the near abroad.”

“This is not the end of Atlanticism, but the beginning of a new, more balanced relationship in the alliance,” Hammond said.

While the U.S.-UK ties will always be Britain’s priority, Hammond said, “to support your rebalancing [to Asia], we will seek to work more closely with our neighbors in Europe, particularly France and Germany, to enhance capabilities in our own region.”

It’s a nice thought, and it certainly would be the responsible thing to do. But there’s no reason to pretend this will happen. France just excused their pro-Western president from his duties to replace him with the leader of the French socialists, and absent conditions threatening a localized catastrophe–think Libya–it’s difficult to imagine the French increasing their role in defense of the West.

As for Germany, the country was greeted with Nazi catcalls for simply trying to maintain leverage over the conditions of bailing out failing European economies and saving the euro–just imagine what Europe’s reaction would be if Germany so much as hinted at becoming the continent’s new military power. It’s a nonstarter.

And what about Britain? As Max wrote here a couple weeks ago, British defense cuts will pare down the standing army to its lowest level in a century, and its diplomatic influence will wane accordingly. Hammond focused his remarks on, in his words, “the European NATO powers.” This is telling–and unfortunate. As Josh Rogin reported after the U.S.-hosted NATO summit in May:

This weekend’s NATO summit in Chicago is the first in decades to make little to no progress on the enlargement of the organization, leaving several countries to wait another two years to move toward membership in the world’s premier military alliance.

In the official 65-point summit declaration issued Sunday, there were several references to the four countries vying for progress on their road to NATO membership: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Georgia. But none came away from the summit with any tangible progress to tout back at home. NATO expansion was just not a priority of the Obama administration this year, U.S. officials and experts say, given the packed security-focused agenda and looming uncertainly caused by the deepening European financial crisis.

So the crisis in Europe had the opposite effect from what Hammond is suggesting; rather than retrench and build the West’s military alliance, everyone was too busy chewing his fingernails to get any work done.

This is not to say there are no reasons for caution on enlarging NATO. It’s that no progress was even attempted. And countries developing or experimenting with democratic laws and norms don’t usually tread water–they should be helped forward so they don’t fall back. NATO membership action plans can often be useful in this regard, as Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Rogin:

Conley pointed to the Serbian elections this weekend, where Serbians chose an ultra-nationalist known as “Toma the Gravedigger” to be their president, as evidence that these countries could slip back toward authoritarianism if not given full support and inclusion by Western organizations.

The West is not always to blame. Often a country slipping back toward authoritarianism and corruption poses a chicken-or-egg question: Was Ukraine rejected by the West, or did they choose to reject the West (or orchestrate their rejection by the West)? But the underlying point is valid, and we cannot continue brushing off countries and expecting them not to take a hint. (Georgia, for example, has contributed more to the Afghanistan mission than some NATO countries.)

Now would be a great time to expand the Western alliance. Until that happens, Europe and NATO will continue to recede from the world stage, and Hammond’s good advice will be unceremoniously ignored.

At the London Review of Books, of all places, Christian Lorentzen has a less-than-admiring portrait of Paul Krugman, who was in London in May plugging his latest book. Krugman went on the BBC’s “Hardtalk” to take questions from journalist Sarah Montague:

A strange theatre ensues whenever Krugman is engaged by a journalist rather than a peer with similar expertise or a politician with actual if undeserved authority. The journalist reminds him of the people who’ve dismissed his ideas and he just shakes his head and says these Very Serious People are wrong. When the journalist goes the other way and flatters him, his ego creeps out:

Montague: If you were advising the Greek government now, what would you say to them?

Krugman: Ah well, you know, I’ve actually had conversations, not with them, but you know, with European politicians.

Montague: With whom?

Krugman: Um, I can’t tell you that.

Montague: But has there been a European government that’s asked for your advice?

Krugman: No, no, I’ve just had conversations.

His face takes on a pained expression, he stammers, puts his finger to his cheek, and for a moment shuts his eyes. You get the sense he’s thinking, why am I not in charge? There’s something sad about the spectacle.

It is, as James Taranto might say, the sad spectacle of a former Enron adviser.

At the London Review of Books, of all places, Christian Lorentzen has a less-than-admiring portrait of Paul Krugman, who was in London in May plugging his latest book. Krugman went on the BBC’s “Hardtalk” to take questions from journalist Sarah Montague:

A strange theatre ensues whenever Krugman is engaged by a journalist rather than a peer with similar expertise or a politician with actual if undeserved authority. The journalist reminds him of the people who’ve dismissed his ideas and he just shakes his head and says these Very Serious People are wrong. When the journalist goes the other way and flatters him, his ego creeps out:

Montague: If you were advising the Greek government now, what would you say to them?

Krugman: Ah well, you know, I’ve actually had conversations, not with them, but you know, with European politicians.

Montague: With whom?

Krugman: Um, I can’t tell you that.

Montague: But has there been a European government that’s asked for your advice?

Krugman: No, no, I’ve just had conversations.

His face takes on a pained expression, he stammers, puts his finger to his cheek, and for a moment shuts his eyes. You get the sense he’s thinking, why am I not in charge? There’s something sad about the spectacle.

It is, as James Taranto might say, the sad spectacle of a former Enron adviser.

Krugman went on another show to argue against Jon Moulton, chairman of Better Capital, and Andrea Leadsom, a Tory MP and former banker. Lorentzen recounts the following exchange:

“I find his view reckless, frankly,” Leadsom said, “I can’t believe that somebody as incredibly highly regarded as you could honestly think that the answer is to go and borrow more money.” Krugman told her she was confusing an economy with a household.

Late yesterday afternoon, Krugman posted a mini-classic of Krugmanesque analysis on his New York Times blog. It seems “totally obvious to me,” he wrote, that economists and Fed officials are making erroneous assumptions “without realizing it.” They’re making “exactly the same mistake” he demonstrated in 1998 with a chart. We should “pursue unconventional policies on a sufficient scale,” by which I think he means going out and borrowing a lot more money: totally obvious to him.

Back in Europe, a lot of countries are learning that the comparison of a country’s budget to that of a household is not quite as irrelevant as Krugman suggested. In fact, for some of them, the analogy may now be totally obvious.

The news today has been all health care, all the time. And understandably so. But amid the laser-like focus on the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s new health care system, it is important not to lose sight of the bigger picture. Health care is merely the latest in a long line of social welfare expenditures, going all the way back to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which have swallowed up an ever-growing share of the federal budget—and the national economy.

As this useful Heritage Foundation chart shows, entitlement spending first exceeded defense spending in 1976. Ever since, the trend has been getting more lopsided with entitlements taking up ever more of the economy and defense ever less. That gap has become especially pronounced since President Obama took office in 2009. The percentage of GDP going to the federal government grew from 20.7 percent in 2008 to 25.1 percent in 2011 before dipping slightly to 23.2 percent this year. Meanwhile, the state governments are taking another 15 percent, which means that as a total share of the economy the government is now consuming roughly 40 percent, and of that, less than five percent is going to the military.

The news today has been all health care, all the time. And understandably so. But amid the laser-like focus on the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s new health care system, it is important not to lose sight of the bigger picture. Health care is merely the latest in a long line of social welfare expenditures, going all the way back to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which have swallowed up an ever-growing share of the federal budget—and the national economy.

As this useful Heritage Foundation chart shows, entitlement spending first exceeded defense spending in 1976. Ever since, the trend has been getting more lopsided with entitlements taking up ever more of the economy and defense ever less. That gap has become especially pronounced since President Obama took office in 2009. The percentage of GDP going to the federal government grew from 20.7 percent in 2008 to 25.1 percent in 2011 before dipping slightly to 23.2 percent this year. Meanwhile, the state governments are taking another 15 percent, which means that as a total share of the economy the government is now consuming roughly 40 percent, and of that, less than five percent is going to the military.

We are, in short, becoming more like Europe—and not just because it’s now possible to get tasty croissants and frothy cappuccinos on this side of the Atlantic. In Europe, governments now consume more than 50 percent of GDP. Hence, it is no surprise that few European states are spending even as much as two percent of GDP on defense—the baseline established by NATO for its member states. The Europeans simply can’t afford to spend more on defense without cutting back social welfare programs, which the political class cannot do because it sparks riots in the streets.

This is where we are currently heading—and if ObamaCare survives political as well as legal challenges, with its estimated cost of more than a trillion dollars, we will arrive at this destination all the more quickly. We will simply not be able to pay for our defense as we have been doing. And that will be a calamity. The Europeans could afford to stint on their defense because we protect them. But who will protect us?

Only 69,000 jobs were created in May, the worst number in a year, and far below what economists had been expecting (the consensus forecast was for about 150,000 new jobs). Meanwhile, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2 percent from 8.1. That’s the first actual increase in unemployment in 11 months. Stock market futures, already considerably down, plunged further with the news. Gold ticked up, and the ten-year bond fell to a record low of 1.46 percent (i.e., lend the federal government $1,000 and they will pay you a snappy $14.60 in interest per year).

The recovery, mediocre at best, has now appeared to stall, especially with jobs numbers for March and April revised downward (April’s were cut from 115,000 to 77,000, March’s from 154,000 to 143,000.) Europe’s numbers were even more dismal, with euro-zone unemployment now at 11 percent, the worst since the number was first calculated in 1995.

With Europe teetering on the edge of a financial meltdown, the head of the European Central Bank is telling political leaders to do something and do it now:

In a warning to political leaders, Mr. Draghi told members of the European Parliament on Thursday that the central bank is reaching the limits of its powers and now it is up to politicians to move quickly and decisively because the survival of the euro, the Continent’s common currency, is at stake. The structure of the currency union, he said, had become “unsustainable unless further steps are undertaken.”

These numbers are a disaster for the Obama re-election campaign. Indeed, unless they improve and improve soon, and unless European leaders take Lady Macbeth’s advice and screw their courage to the sticking place—not something for which European leaders have been noted of late—a year from now a Romney administration may be talking about the difficulty of dealing with the mess they inherited.

Only 69,000 jobs were created in May, the worst number in a year, and far below what economists had been expecting (the consensus forecast was for about 150,000 new jobs). Meanwhile, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2 percent from 8.1. That’s the first actual increase in unemployment in 11 months. Stock market futures, already considerably down, plunged further with the news. Gold ticked up, and the ten-year bond fell to a record low of 1.46 percent (i.e., lend the federal government $1,000 and they will pay you a snappy $14.60 in interest per year).

The recovery, mediocre at best, has now appeared to stall, especially with jobs numbers for March and April revised downward (April’s were cut from 115,000 to 77,000, March’s from 154,000 to 143,000.) Europe’s numbers were even more dismal, with euro-zone unemployment now at 11 percent, the worst since the number was first calculated in 1995.

With Europe teetering on the edge of a financial meltdown, the head of the European Central Bank is telling political leaders to do something and do it now:

In a warning to political leaders, Mr. Draghi told members of the European Parliament on Thursday that the central bank is reaching the limits of its powers and now it is up to politicians to move quickly and decisively because the survival of the euro, the Continent’s common currency, is at stake. The structure of the currency union, he said, had become “unsustainable unless further steps are undertaken.”

These numbers are a disaster for the Obama re-election campaign. Indeed, unless they improve and improve soon, and unless European leaders take Lady Macbeth’s advice and screw their courage to the sticking place—not something for which European leaders have been noted of late—a year from now a Romney administration may be talking about the difficulty of dealing with the mess they inherited.